be deceived by this way our spirits being too feeble this way too eminent and that it occasions a perpetuall combate in the spirit As it is troublesome to a man to walk in darkness so it is hard for the soul to go this way of Faith which is obscure and hidden But if we would learn it well we must say the contrary all other wayes are uncertain and deceitfull vertue alone is infallible we shall never be deceived if we stick to it It were to have a mean esteem of Gods graces and to be ignorant of the Principles of our salvation to believe that the faith God hath given us to conduct us is capable of loosing us Let us remember that God hath given us the light of faith to guide our reason and that our reason must submit thereunto and in respect of Faith be annihilated as Saint Paul saith We walk by faith not by sight meaning that to live Christianly we must let our reason be guided by faith not faith by reason wherein we see the designes of God in the rule of our souls the necessity of our walking by the light of this torch or according to the ordinary manner of speech see how necessary it is for him that will live a perfect Christian to follow onely the light of faith and to learn to make use of Evangelicall truth If at any time the souls who take this way are deceived it is in that they go out of it and being perswaded by the Devil or self-love or the vanity of the humane spirit which esteems it self in every thing withdraw themselves from the conduct of faith to follow that of humane prudence choosing to be guided by the rules of the flesh and the spirit of worldly vanity rather then by the maxims of Iesus Christ and the spirit of heavenly truth Thus indeed they find themselves deceived and fall into misfortunes not for having taken this way of faith but for having quitted it and adhered to humane prudence and the light of reason which like an ignis fatuus will lead us out of the way unless we be aided by a supernaturall force and guided by a more sure light such as is this of faith But to the soul that is faithfull applying her self to the truths of Faith and Maxims of Christianity that seeks God with simplicity and humility there must necessarily arrive great profit and advantage in christian perfection We must not therefore condemn this way and reject it as too high too difficult and too painfull for it is the way that the Sonne of God himself hath left to his Church and commanded all his children But on the contrary we must teach it every one accommodating our selves to their several capacities and giving them all the means to pursue it without going out of it least they be deceived If we find here any difficulty it is in our selves There are two things in man which hinder his progress this way one is esteem of himself and of his own spirit the other is the Love that he bears himself and for his own sake to the Creatures To pursue this way and to make use of Faith he must go out of himself and renounce his own spirit and raise himself above all Creatures to adhere to truth to believe and to make use of what he did believe he must renounce his judgement his reason and his sense and annihilate them If our reason sense and judgement repugne the truth proposed to our belief we must quit our reason and our sense to unite our selves to the truth If for instance it is proposed that the uncreated eternall word become man that God died reason and sense oppose this truth Reason cannot comprehend that the eternall God should make himself subject to Time the immortall submit himself to Death yet to believe this our Will moved by grace notwithstanding the opposition of reason and sense must say I will believe and adhere to the truth proposed The will adhering hereto commands reason and judgement which obeying her believe what she proposes the understanding which useth to command and be free renders it self captive and obedient annihilating its own thoughts and reason that so it may adhere to the truth proposed and form an act of Faith Thus we are to understand that of Saint Paul bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. By faith the understanding which useth to command is made captive and obedient to the Will therefore the soul in the practise of Faith goes out of her selfe and no more obeys her judgement or sense she no more regards her self but the truth onely which she embraces as her object adhering and uniting her self thereto Thus by Faith the soul is elevated above her self to be tyed and united to the eternall and infallible truth revealed and proposed to her This well considered will shew us the excellency and dignity of faith by which knowledge we shall learn how much we are to esteem the state of christianity in generall and the life of a christian in particular seeing that according to Gods designes and the grace of Iesus Christ the christian as christian must live and be guided onely by the spirit of truth and light of faith which being divine and supernaturall drawes us out of our selves to unite and tye us to God who is truth We shall moreover see by what hath been said that faith is not what we think it consists not in great learning in many reasons and severall Arguments on the contrary it is for the simple and for those who can go out of themselves who can annihilate themselves in their reason and quitting the regard of themselves and other creatures adhere and follow the truth of faith Therefore it is said commonly that the learned and wise of the world who have most prudence most reason the most solid judgement and capacity of spirit have likewise most opposition to faith for they are lesse able to go out of themselves to annihilate their own spirits and judgements Thus Iesus Christ after he had summed up the truths of Heaven and described the contentments of the glory of the just concludes with an Enthusiasme of truth I thank thee O Father saith he Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things these truths from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes to the humble and meek Which shews that the knowledge of truth and of the spirit of faith is a gift of God that God gives it to the humble and little ones that to adhere to it we must humble and abase our selves In a word to make use of the truth and faith conceived we must go out of our selves and out of esteem of our selves Let us practise this for it is our principall design To make use of faith and truths conceived we must first consider what faith proposes but we must consider it barely and simply without any discourse upon it we
believe little doubt of all things live a life more like Philosophers then Christians and make no great account of a thousand good things which are usefull in Christianity To remedy this they must learn that faith the spirit of truth and the life of Christ must be the onely rule and guide of our actions and life in such manner that to go out of this rule and conduct either on the right hand or left is alwayes to erre from the right way 2. Considering what we have now said of truth we cleerly see how necessary it is to be established in the spirit of faith and to take truth for our object and conduct All other spirits are deceitfull and lying whence it followeth that souls that will live in Christian perfection must commence by this exercise and must necessarily lay the spirit of faith as the foundation of vertue if they would obtain any As faith is the door whereby we enter into the house of God and are made children of the Church so must she be the beginning of the life of a Christian and the spirit wherewith he lives and endeavours to acquire vertue Where we must mark in the conduct of souls how necessary it is to establish them in the spirit of faith and to accustom them to walk in the light of truth This is the first Lesson we must propose to them in this point wherein we must keep and exercise them as that which is onely profitable and without which nothing is stable or true not to entertain and amuse I dare not say to deceive them by so much prudence by the consideration of so many humane reasons and by the example and actions of men a hard case that the devout of this age take so much care to recommend and obtain morall and civil Vertues and mention not nor consider but superficially the divine and necessary Let us learn and say with Iesus Christ that Truth alone shall save us and that truth must be the foundation establishment of our life if we will live true Christians Hence the soul that will arrive to christian perfection must shut her eares divert her thoughts from all that the humane spirit reason and self-love can inwardly represent and must not hearken to them who regard not God purely but measure the greatness of Heaven with the eyes of flesh by the smallness of the earth and speak of vertues and christian perfection according to their own sense more like Philosophers then Christians Such persons by their discourse and conference study to destroy the maxims of Iesus Christ to establish humane prudence and use their uttermost to abase vertue and make it humane In a word they onely labour to make man reasonable not to make him a perfect christian Upon such occasions the soul that seeketh true perfection and will follow Iesus Christ must stand upon her guard and avoid such persons and with great care must prevent humane prudence from annihilating in her the spirit of faith and the esteem of the things of God If it happen that a soul see her self among such persons and shall understand their discourse to be such it will be good at that instant by a sweet elevation of spirit to give her self to God and renew if she can her esteem of Truth in a thought of God renouncing the perswasions of the humane spirit and protesting that she will receive no other conduct or light then that of Faith nor other interiour dispositions then those of Jesus Christ according to the truths that he hath left to his Church If notwithstanding all this the soul remain in fear or trouble of spirit or feel the spirit of faith to diminish in her then she shall give her self more strongly to God and recollecting her self she shall with an humble spirit stir up in the bottom of the heart a confidence in God alone and a diffidence of all things In fine she shall divert her self from all thoughts which trouble the repose of her spirit and captivate her judgement her reason and humane essence to the spirit of faith she shall undergo with an humble patience the pains which she feels contenting her self by an act of her will to subject her spirit to all that Iesus hath said without regarding any other thing and in this manner she shall keep her self united with Iesus Christ and in a secret silence shall imploy her self in him not about the business in question This act is heroick because his disposition is hard and strikes our senses rudely and sometimes it is painfull but it is withall certain and pleasing to God It is not painfull otherwise then as our reason our judgement and the love of our own interests is living in us If we would annihilate all that it would be easie for to overcome and to believe rather in Iesus Christ then in men and our own sense yet must we not whatsoever difficulty we meet with neglect this labour for as the soul hath nothing more assured then faith nothing more profitable or more powerfull then truth so the Devil fails not also all the wayes that he can to draw us from the conduct of faith and to annihilate in us the light and to force us from the adherence to truth if not all at once yet at least by little and little The soul therefore must take heed she be not here deceived seeing all her happiness consists in walking in the spirit of faith and with the light of the truth This exercise is important let us see how we are to behave our selves therein CHAP. VI. Of the use of Faith and how we may practise it THe soul may be guided two wayes by the naturall light of reason which is weak and deceitful ever fallible and by the light of faith which is infallible powerful certain proportioned to that state of glory whereat we aim it is a supernaturall light given by God to guide us to Heaven The first is common to the souls of the World by St. Paul stiled children of the flesh the second proper to souls which live perfect christians who resign themselves to the spirit of God and to his conduct who trust onely in God adhere to nothing but to the faith which they have in the words of Iesus Christ and the Maxims of the Gospel It is the property of a christian to live and guide himself according to the light and truths of Faith lights much above the naturall light of Reason to this end is he made a Christian. 'T is true the way of faith is hard because it captivates the judgement it is above our sense it combates humane reason it is hidden and very spirituall yet must we nevertheless follow and embrace it because Iesus Christ gives it because it is certain and infallible because it is suitable to the wayes of God who leads men in this world through obscurity having reserved knowledge and light for heaven There are who will think that the soul may
Christian life doth consist What difficulty do we find in this kind of life all the obstacle if we neerly consider it proceeds from not understanding what is the interiour life of the Soul many believe it a kind of an abstract life and of the other World a life full of care a life which is an enemy to humane society Others consider it as a life of insupportable solitude and inaccessible contemplation every one speaks of it as he pleases Some condemn it others say it is impossible most believe it difficult Let us not insist upon words they are explicated to all sences let us onely say that the life we call interiour is no other then the life of the Soul the life of the Soul is God the grace of God the life of his grace the mother of all vertues Thus then the interior life is no other then a vertuous Christian life to which life all Christians are obliged An inward and spiritual man must fear God from the bottom of his soul must highly esteem of all that is in Christianity and in the Church of God must be vigilant to do nothing to displease God careful to preserve his Soul and Conscience in the purity of grace and as the Apostle saith having a good Conscience in all things to have an esteem of God from the bottom of his heart and of all that belongs to God and to carry a mean esteem of himself and all Creatures To live in this manner is that which I call an inward life the rest without this is nothing and to teach Souls any other life is to betray them Now who sees not that all Christians are obliged to this kind of life if they will be saved who findes not now how much this life is easier then it was represented and all together contrary to what was expected Let us then take a firm resolution to embrace it and to give our selves with all our Souls to him who hath given himself to us He hath right and power to live in us to do in us and of us all that he pleases Let us onely take care that we commit our selves to his conduct and to the operation of his holy Spirit and being assisted by his Grace Let us chearfully endeavour the acquisition of Christian vertues Let us so order that grace may reign in us according to the design of God that God may dwell in us as in a living tabernacle which Iesus Christ hath consecrated by his blood and we shall see by experience that with the Apostle We are able to do all things through Iesus Christ who strengtheneth us CHAP. II. That the possession of God is the end of a Christian life whereto we cannot arrive but by the grace of Iesus Christ. BEfore I proceed I must suppose that I speak to souls desirous to live vertuously and perfectly in the state of Christianity according to Jesus Christ the Law and Rule My address is to such who are faithfull Dispensators of the gifts and graces of God will make use thereof according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God endeavouring to profit a hundred fold The first thing that I ask of them is What is the end of the life and actions of a Christian For as in things naturall artificiall the first thought and knowledge of the workman is the end of his work so in Piety we must consider and know the end and the life of Christian actions that knowing them we may resolve couragiously to undertake them and promise our selves great fidelity in the practice of all that shall be proposed to us or is necessary for to arrive at so happy an estate We know the end of a Christian soul is nothing but God who is he that filleth all in all saith the Apostle whom it seeketh to and possesseth as its sole happiness and to enjoy him for ever None reject this truth though it appear high and extraordinary for they that discourse ordinarily of Christian perfection say all that it consists in the love of God and in perfect charity which is true But if we consider what this love means we shall find that it is nothing but the possession of God for the love of God hath priviledge and power to give God who is essentiall love Thus considering this truth we shall find that perfection consists in love which love gives us the possession of God therefore the perfection of our soul must be the love of God He that will comprehend the excellency of this must know the greatness and dignity of God from which knowledge he shall learn what the life of our souls must be what our entertainments and how holy our actions ought to be For if the means be proportionable to the end it must necessarily follow that the end of our souls being supernaturall and nothing less then God himself the means also that we must use to arrive to this end must be supernaturall and divine They therefore who seek perfection in the enjoyment of this end must have a particular care not only to embrace all actions and uses which may conduct them but shun and contemne all vain and superfluous things which serve not to attain to this end and must detest them We must remember that we cannot arrive at this end nor to the possession of God who is the perfection of a Christian his fulness and the consummation of his soul but by the conduct of God himself by grace alone and mercy and according to the testimony of Iesus none can arrive to the knowledge of God but by his divine Light and by a speciall Revelation No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him And when a man shall come to this knowledge he can make no good use of it unless he be aided with a new favour he cannot go to God nor enjoy his grace or spirit unless he be aided and guided by him who saith I am the Way the Truth and the Life no man cometh to the Father but by me And that which shews our greatest impotency or need of Iesus Christ and his grace is that without him we can do nothing worthy and capable to approach unto God and enable us to possess him Without me saith he you can do nothing On the one side the soul sees and confesses that God is her perfection her happiness and heritage that in him she hath all that he alone is her sufficiency her life and consummation On the other side she finds that she cannot go to him nor enjoy him nor think of him but by him that is to say by his grace by his infinite mercy she feels that she bears in the bottom of her being not only incapacity impotency and feeblness but of opposition to grace to the gifts and work of God On the other side she carries the effects of Gods love she
as in the Church he is fed with the body and drinks the blood of Iesus Christ. Among the true vertus which we must possess that which is as the gold and enamel of all the rest is purity a vertue altogether necessary yet either despised or little known If we would see the necessity thereof let us onely consider what is the end of a Christian and wherein consists the perfection of the state of Christianity The perfect Christian must live the life of grace which is the life of Iesus Christ he must carry God he must possess God If any man love me saith Christ he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come into him and make our abode with him which we must not onely understand of justifying and inherent grace a gift created and given of God but of the reall true habitation and presence of God in our souls The soul of the just saith the Wise man is the Throne of God and the Apostle sayes often that our souls and bodies are Temples of God Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the holy Ghost Reflecting on this so manifest a truth we must say that to receive and possess God in our soul we must have the purity of God and in a word without flattering our selves with vain hopes and disguizing or covering the truth let us consider a little seriously what the place ought to be where the Majesty of a God will dwell for ever what ought his dwelling to be of whom David saith Thou dwelst in the sanctuary and in the holy of holies What ought the heart of a man to be where God hath made himself a seat which he hath chosen and consecrated to be the throne of his love We must believe God will require in us a purity worthy of God seeing he who is purity it self will dwell eternally in us This purity that God demands and whereof he is worthy is so divine that our strength cannot arrive unto it he must give it he must assist our importance there is nothing but the fire of his love the lightning of his light the force of his grace and the power of his spirit that can purge expiate and consume all in us that is contrary to this purity In brief it belongs to God alone to place us in the purity that he requires of us This shews how much those souls are deceived who think to possess God and be well with him yet are more remote from him then heaven is from earth We need not but to behold and judge by the effects what its cause is Now as this purity is altogether necessary to possess God so it is our part to desire and to demand it of him and our principall care must be to purify our heart to make it to bear God we must offer it to him that we may bring to our selves the effect of this saying of God to his Spouse and to all others My son give me thy heart we must give and resigne it to him alone it is his desire it is our duty and our happiness if he will vouchsafe to accept it it will be his when he pleaseth to make it such as he requires it This is not all we must co-operate herein and labour with care and vigilancy that we may employ our selves herein with courage and labour with profit let us therefore see wherein this purity consists The purity of the heart may be understood two wayes one that we must purifie our heart from all sorts of sins and voluntary imperfections God enters not into a malicious soul nor inhabits in a body enslav'd to sin we mean not only gross sins but ordinary failings even all faults be they never so little For God being purity it self cannot inhabit in a heart if he find not or put not therein this purity and being infinitely good he infinitly hates evil whatsoever it be and though the least faults drive not God out of our souls yet they make a division and unsettle the soul from God they make great spoil in the heart they undermine it they brand it they indispose it and being so it is disagreeable to God and becomes the object of his Iustice. The soul that knowes how to esteem of God and bears any impression of his purity will think more then I say and never consent to the least imperfection all is insupportable to her that she knows to be disacceptable to God she hath no consideration of estate honour her own good or of men where she sees there is any thing capable to offend the eyes and heart of her God all her care is to detest and extirpate not onely the least faults but to quit renounce and separate her self from whatsoever she knowes to be displeasing to God It is the chief advice of St. Augustine Before any work saith he be sure to purify the heart and take from it all that you observe displeasing to God When he would have us take from our hearts all that is displeasing to God he discovers a great secret he would have us go out of our selves and take out of us all that is of Adam he would have us annihilate our inclinations because whatsoever is of Adam is impure and opposite to Iesus Christ and ever contrary to him whence we conclude that he who would possess Iesus must do all he can possible to dispossess himself of and to drive away Adam this spirit of Adam and his inclinations can no more subsist in the soul with the spirit of God then the Idol Dagon could stand before the Ark of the Covenant All that is in us and is not of God is impure and unworthy of God and all that is out of God can produce no good nor any thing worthy of God these are great truths such as might transport our spirits yet let us not be astonish'd at this Proposition as too high and impossible and we shall see that therein is nothing too much but rather far less then so worthy a subject merits if we consider how pure that soul must be that would please God be in God and possess God and what purity it must have to be one with God for thereon the life of a Christian happily terminates O great God how many deceive themselves O God of adorable purity how few are fit to possess Thee By the light of these truths we may discover the abuse and deceits in christian devotion Some think that they hold God by the hand already and believe themselves well advanced in perfection in that they communicate in that they fast and pray every day and a thousand such like things wherein they exercise themselves they have the taste and sense of devotion they speak well of God and if you will believe them they say they are ravished in God But consider them well you shall find they live wholly according to their own inclinations they mind onely their own
in them all that God intended It requires a very quick sight to perceive these snares and a great vigilancy to correspond with the work of God and to act with the purity of God for to this point it must arrive To this end will contribute much the second means we have proposed which makes us renounce our selves and annihilate in us all regard to the Creatures that God alone may be the object the hope the confidence and the whole of our soul. The brightness and beauty of this vertue will hurt their eyes who too much love themselves for they must quit all to possess it they must have neither heart nor eyes for themselves or the creatures and this they cannot digest who esteem themselves perfect enough and think they hold God inchain'd by the chains of their devotions which they love even to idolatry despising and neglecting this vertue which gives us God out of an opinion that they already possess him The sloathful will not regard it because it exacts two much care and vigilance it is for them who love God or who seriously desire to love him to esteem this vertue and to seek it fervently for where love is there the eyes are and we desire not to please but where we love Let us love and we shall find nothing difficult Is it not an intolerable blindness to see so many refusalls as we make to so great a happiness and to make difficulties when God will love our souls when he will replenish them with himself He will provide for them he will conduct them therefore he will separate them from themselves and the Creatures that the heart may be pure and fit to receive him who is purity it self O soul saith Saint Cyprian If thou suffice God let God suffice thee if God love thee love thou him if he regard thee do thou regard him The fifth Disposition CHAP. XII Of Self-deniall and the necessity thereof IT is impossible to be perfect if we be not God's we cannot be God's unless he possess us and replenish us with his spirit To attain this happiness we must necessarily go out of our selves and into a true denial of our selves for as much as we are emptied of our selves and the creature so much shall we be filled of God from whence this maxime so remarkable in Christian piety Abnegation and annihilation leads us to the fulness of God This vertue is almost unknown to the world and which is to be lamented even those that make it their business to follow Piety regard it not and yet there is no vertue more indispensable or more necessary Self-deniall is the first Disposition whereto the creature must put himself before the Majesty of his Creator it is an estate which the soul must be in if it will turn to God In brief it is the centre of Christianity for it is founded upon a true and pure annihilation We know the creatures before the Majesty of God are but as a grain of sand The Vniverse is but as a drop of morning dew and according to the saying of a Christian Philosopher The whole earth is but as a point of a point None but God can say I am that I am All creatures ought to annihilate themselves at his word and to account themselves before this infinite being as if they were not The first use hereof was made by the Angels when in the revolt that was in heaven Saint Michael the Archangel and all good Angels according to their duties re-doubled this Protestation of annihilation Who is like unto God words that made the Angels go out of themselves and annihilate themselves before the Majesty of God words shewing that self-deniall and annihilation is the first duty the Angels rendred to God It is likewise the first thing that man ought to do and the first use of his soul is to annihilate her self before the Majesty of God and to protest he will go out of his being and renounce himself to be what God will have him The Reverence and Religion which men have professed shew this annihilation of the creature before God for from the beginning of the World by an instinct inspired from heaven Altars have been erected Sacrifices and Holocausts offered wherein the being of the thing sacrificed is annihilated as in protestation made by the creature that its being is dependant on God and that he ought to annihilate himself at sight of the incomprehensible and adorable Majesty of his Creator What difficulty can there be in a thing so evident Can there be any creature or spirit so ambitious as to advance it self before God and esteem it self something before his infinite being If then before God man may not esteem himself any thing without losing himself with Lucifer he must necessarily annihilate himself his condition constrains him thereunto whether he will or not Herein appears the truth of what we said that Abnegation is a disposition which no creature no man neither can or must eternally go out of Self-deniall is the first estate wherein the soul that would turn to God and receive the grace of Iustification must be the reason is manifest Man by sin is turned and separated from God to turn unite and apply himself to the creature To go out of Sin and turn himself to God he must necessarily go out of himself renounce himself and all creatures and must separate and dis-unite himself from himself if he will be united to God and be perfectly converted This is to be done by self-deniall whereby the soul renounceth the creature and annihilateth in her self all that she is In a word she goes out of her self to return unto God which she does assisted by grace which draws her back and separates her from what diverts her from God Let us consider this first truth by the principle and light of faith Since the fall of Adam we are not sanctified but by and in Iesus Christ we cannot be sanctfied as children of Adam but as members of Iesus Christ and as the new creature in Iesus Christ. This Principle of faith granted it follows that if we will take part with grace and holiness and be sanctified in Iesus Christ we must necessarily renounce our selves and cease to be to our selves that we may be to Iesus Christ which cannot be but by self-deniall This was the state of Saint Paul at his conversion and the sense of his words when he sayes I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Thus we must understand these words of the Son of God directed to all Christians If any man will come after me let him deny himself wherein appears how necessary this vertue is to all souls that would follow Iesus Christ and turn to God Thirdly self-deniall is the centre of Christianity Let us consider it from it's birth and we shall find the Son of God founded his Church accomplished our Redemption and will save the World by the wayes of annihilation
the satisfaction of their own spirit You shall find their hearts void of God full of self-love their actions inconstant their thoughts in continuall changings In fine they are nothing but disquiets complaints and murmurings Look upon their life and actions it is but a pastime unprofitableness and the vanities of the age and having considered it all it will not be hard for you to know whether those souls have the fear of God and the knowledge of vertue yet in appearance they make a great shew we know not whether is to blame those who are conducted and directed or the Directors But how ever it be the Christian who would be saved must labour herein seriously and neither fear pains nor mortifications but seek to be conducted by the wayes that God hath ordained and passing above all considerations and all sorts of difficulties prove constant and complyant with the order that God hath established over him he must every day renew his good resolutions and pray to God to let him know and be acquainted with the designes he hath upon him and give him grace in every point to follow them and with fidelity to accomplish them And seeing that his fidelity is now in question and that it is altogether necessary to all Christians it were but necessary we made some discourse of it CHAP. VII Of the fidelity of the soul and of its necessity in the wayes of grace and the actions of a Christian. TO speak of Fidelity and to see how much it is necessary to all Christians we must reflect upon the truths already proposed and remember that man was created for God who is his end that God alone can conduct him to this end and that it is the same God who onely operates in him all the good works which are necessary to make him Gods and to arrive at this end which is God From these principles of truth we enter into our subject and presently see that we have not any thing more important in this World then to go to God to co-operate with the works which God does in us to save us and to accomplish with fidelity that which he requires of us and in the spirit and disposition that he desires every one applying himself faithfully to the way that God proposes and the works of his vocation that the Priest live according to the perfection of his estate the Christian as Christian in brief that all men live so as at the houre of death they may say with Iesus Christ My Father I have glorified thee upon the Earth I have finish'd the work thou hast ordained me to do This fidelity which is absolutely necessary must be in our soul from the time we were born Though there were neither Heaven nor Hell we are obliged to live according to the will of our Creator what aversness soever the creature may have it shall be allwayes subject to the order of God either in the way of justice or mercy If we would be saved it cannot be unless we co-operate with the works that God will do in us unless we become faithfull to his graces and follow the order that God hath prescrib'd wherein he will conduct us to salvation and therefore it concerns us more then we think to take heed to the designes that God hath over us and to the vocation whereto he hath called us to the motions and inspirations he gives us to make use with fidelity of the graces he offers least drawing our selves from the order and offer of his mercy we enter into that of his Iustice and one day he say to us in the rigour of his determined Decree as he said to his people I will choose their delusions and bring their feares upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they did not hear but they did evill in my sight and chose that in which I delighted not Isa. 66.4 When we speak of the vocation and use we are to make of the graces and benefits of God we speak of Paradise to despise them is to neglect salvation Therefore the Christian must consider what he does as well in that which concerns the vocation he must choose as in the use of the graces and favours he receives of God seeing thereon depends all his happiness or misery we must take heed we chuse not what God would not have us nor despise what he would have us to embrace This point is the most important of all in a Christian life yet is it a mystery the most secret of any in Christianity The vocation of a soul is as much hidden as her election which none can know or easily discern by her conduct The wayes of God are as much elevated above ours as Heaven above Earth and yet O wonderfull God wills that we follow his wayes and none shall be saved but according to the vocation whereto God from all time hath called him What remedy seeing on the one side necessity constrains us and on the other the incertainty and obscurity deters us O just God God of all bounty who shall enlighten us in this darkness who shall resolve us in an affaire so doubtfull who shall assure us amidst so many doubts nothing but thy light O God the onely refuge of our souls can conduct us nothing but thy spirit can teach us but thy truth can assure us and but thy infinite mercy can protect us This lets us see in what danger they put themselves who so long neglect the motions graces and favours of God and make such ill use of his benefits From these truths we learn the esteem we ought to have of our vocation and with what circumspection we must make choice thereof and if we will make our selves worthy to receive of God the light and conduct necessary in an affaire of so great consequence for our salvation it will be very profitable to enter into these following dispositions First The Christian must have a pure desire of God and a resolution to do in every thing his divine will being from the bottom of his Heart wholly resigned to his will and conduct Secondly He must have a great sence of his weakness he must be in an estate of humility before God not esteeming himself worthy or capable of any thing for the humble shall never perish and as Esay saith God looketh to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at his word Thirdly He must renounce his own interests and all his particular concernments he must not regard his own safety that he may have no object but the pure will of God yet in such manner that he who resolves to remain so faithfully and constantly in the order and designes of God and proposes to make hereafter use of Gods gifts graces and benefits and regards not perfection advancement vertue not Heaven it self must not content himself with a thought to please God for alas who is worthy thereof but cleansing and purifying his intentions
example If God put us into an estate of suffering we must accept it and continue therein with patience and submission of spirit not struggling with the good will and pleasure of God but act therein and persist with courage and fidelity We must do the same in privation barrenness and all other estates wherein the Son of God shall please to put us which if we do we shall remain in a true adherence and union with Iesus Christ depending upon him with fidelity which is all that piety aims at CHAP. X. That Christian piety obliges us to submit our life and actions to the honour of Christ. THere cannot any be ignorant that true piety consists in rendring honour to God it is our first exercise the duties of Religion and Love are of such a nature that they must necessarily be referred to God but that of piety obliges us to honour God and to referr our selves to him and consequently to the Son of God For he that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father but by an obligation more particular greater and more speciall in as much as by the grace of Christianity and Principles of true piety we are united to the Son of God and adhere to him as members to the Head This adherence doth not onely put us into a subjection to the power of Iesus but also produces in our souls a regard of love and honour a regard that purifies and directs our intentions and actions not to love or honour any thing but Iesus the Son of God by him to love honour and serve the Father Thus the first estate of piety which consisteth in this adherence obliges us to referr all to him and to honur him in all things This truly is clear in what manner soever we consider it whether in the Oeconomy of our salvation or in the regency of the Church all things invite and oblige us to honour the Son of God The first thing that the eternal Father requires of us in giving his Son to the world the first designe he hath upon his creature is to oblige them to render to his Son the same honour which we render to his infinite supreme Majesty This Obligation is so strict that even at his birth he would have the Angels acknowledge and adore him he sent them from Heaven to Bethlehem to reverence him not onely in the greatness of his divinity but in the lowness of our humanity when conceal'd in a stable and laid in a manger He called thither the Shepherds and the Kings that it might be as David sayes All kings shall fall before him and all nations shall serve him He was no sooner born in the world but the kings of the world came from the East to do him homage to lay their Crowns and Scepters at his feet confessing that all the greatness of the earth ought to serve and honour him The eternall Father sent Angels and men to render honour to his Son to adore his divinity humanized and his humanity deify'd All nations of the world shall assemble and all men shall come to judgement that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father This the Son demands of the Father as part of that fruit he expects of his labours it is one of the richest Iewells of that Crown which he received upon his triumph by the cross over the world sin and death Many think it was the meaning of that Prayer to his Father in the day of his sufferings Father glorifie thy Son to the end that thy Son may glorify thee We owe him this honour for if he humbled himself to our infirmities and the shame and ignominy due to our offences is it not reason that we render him the honour whereof he deprives himself for our sakes and that we serve and honour him in a manner wholly particular seeing he onely of the persons of the most holy Trinity suffered our contempts and confusions This exercise of piety which we here propose as the first obligation we have in the estate of Christianity holds forth one of the noblest most eminent vertues of the Catholique Religion and one of the highest actions of our soul. For if according to Thomas Aquinas we are obliged as soon as we arrive to the use of Reason to some acknowledgements of God and a submission to him as the Author of our nature and our good with much more reason ought we to say that the first thought we ought to have of the Son of God in relation to piety is to referr our selves to him as the principle of our being in the state of grace And if we would make use as we ought of the spirit of Christianity and of the gifts we receive of the Sonne of God we must employ them wholly to his honour and service in such sort that as Iesus is the Authour of our being life and actions he may also be their object and end This is an inseparable obligation and an indispensable duty For if the Christian and all that is in him proceed from the Sonne of God and is consecrated to him by his death it followes that he can neither make use of himself or any thing else but the Sonne of God otherwise he might refer his actions to some other then him to whom they are due and for whom they are consecrated which were to prophane the most holy things and to enjoy the gifts of Iesus Christ against his intentions which is a sacrilegious treason against the divine Majesty For as amongst men he is guilty of theft and deserves death who converts the treasure of his Prince to his private use to passe away his life in vanities and sports so is that Christian criminall who abuses the gifts of the Sonne of God and is prodigall of the Treasures of his bounty That we receive all from the Sonne of God no man can doubt for of him and for him life is given us as also motions sense reason repose health and sleep and in a word the use of all things These are the Treasures of his Court for he hath by his travels and sufferings acquired and by the price of his blood and life purchased our lives our actions our thoughts nay even the time which we enjoy Which having done his intention is that we acknowledging his love and liberality therein should love him serve him and in all things mind his honour and glory This being so what have we to do but to follow his intentions to refer our selves wholly to him to honour him in all things since we have all from him and that for this end he gives us also his speciall graces In what therefore ought we to employ our time our life our health our repose and all that we have but for the honour of the Sonne of God of whom we have received them and who continues them for that very purpose This manner of rendring honour and homage to the Sonne of God is an
Interest they care onely to satisfie themselves in a word they are but themselves and full of self-love you shall know these Trees by their fruits and the end will let you see that do but touch these Mountains and nothing will come out but smoke God dwells not with Baal let us not go two wayes the soul who will possess God who is purity must be pure must purge and take from it self all that displeases God for flesh and blood possess not God There is another deceit whereto we must take heed which is of those that believe they do much and think that God is endebted to them when their Conscience troubles them not with any deadly sin that is when they themselves say they avoid them all for that according to the truth of this proposition simply taken it is certain he who dies without mortall sin shall be a Saint But laying aside many things that may be said against this abuse I will onely make it appeare that they support themselves upon a Reed for I advise all those souls that speak so to acquaint themselves with their own state because that to know the state of our Consciences and our faults as they are we must know what they are before God and by the light of God We cannot have this knowledge but in as much as we are filled with the light of truth and as we esteem God and his greatness But if we did esteem God and acknowledge his greatness and if we did live in the light of the truth we would never speak thus On the contrary we should not onely shun mortall sin but even the least faults for knowing God and esteeming his greatness we love him loving him we fear to do any thing that may displease him be it never so triviall and they therefore who onely regard and fear the grossest sins and care not for the rest assuredly neither know nor esteem God They know him not for they cannot know the state of their Consciences and consequently they deceive themselves when they ground their assurance on a pretence that they are not troubled with mortall sins and that so much the more in that they care not for all the rest believing they are well assur'd of their salvation Alass who is he that can be assured he is worthy of love or hate what presumption is it in men of this age to assure themselves amidst so many dangers Saint Paul the mirrour of Sanctity said of himself I know nothing by my self yet I am not hereby justified and elsewhere he sayes that he runs and labours alwayes because he is not arrived to that perfection God requires of him We must say the same in what state soever we are Whence I conclude that to live in the purity that God requires of a Christian he must not onely shun all sin but further have a generall care and particular vigilance to do nothing which may displease God whatsoever it be and must neglect nothing conducing thereto and herein consisteth purity in the first sense Purity taken in the second manner implies no other thing then a pure regard of man to God be it for the soul or for the body This purity is greatly important and altogether necessary to those who would live as perfect Christians by this purity the soul regards onely God she doth nothing but in the sight of God she seeks nothing but his Will if she love it is onely God if she affect any thing else it is onely for God and according to God in every thing she seeks his glory and satisfaction all creatures are before her as if they were not in this consists the essence of this vertue Perhaps we shall make it better known by proposing the wayes and meanes whereby we may arrive to the acquisition of so divine a vertue The first I place in purity and simplicity of intention when the soul in all that she does annihilates all her intentions her desires her motions her thoughts and admits none but the pure desire of complying with God I call this intention simple because it must be clear and naked without consulting Reason in any thing This intention is simple because it is one wholly and alwayes equall in all things it regards God onely and him continually in brief this intention and regard is simple because it onely rests upon God the soul that seeks this vertue seeks onely God O how desirable is this vertue how happy is this manner of life This is that which unites the soul to God that which pleaseth God and is fit to bear God The second meanes to arrive at the possession of this vertue is by denying our selves when we renounce our selves and admit no resentment that beares impurity and respect to our selves or the creature as the esteem of our own merit of our capacity of our vocation the content of a Neighbour the profit of Friends the acquisition of Vertue and such other things that cause us to stray from God We must annihilate all these resentments and thoughts to persist in the unity and bare simplicity of the pure regard of God the pleasure of God his glory and his content is a thing more important and infinitely of more worth then can be imagin'd yea then the salvation of all men The soul therefore that seeks God and perfection for that is all one must carefully take heed to this manner of purity for to regard any thing but God and to love out of God is to love unworthily and to love any other thing with God whatsoever it be to think thereon to seek it and to care for it is to make too little account of God it is to esteem his love too meanly Men addicted to this World will passe over this lightly and perhaps with contempt but I wish all that heartily seek God and are in the number of those whom God holds in his hand and regards to all eternity with a regard of love and good will that they think of what worth this eternall regard of God is who regards us without ceasing that they consider what God deserves and demand of God that which he pleases for this regard of his love I am confident that these thoughts would lead them to true piety The third meanes to attain this Vertue is vigilancy whereby we take heed to that which God does in us to correspond faithfully with the designes he hath to purifie us for by this vertue he is infused and God by his operations incessantly purifies us It is the duty of the soul to watch the occasions that God giveth her I say to watch for the love of our selves is very cunning to separate us from God and to apply us to our senses under pretence of vertue and necessity The devout soul must seriously take heed least she destroy in her self the works of God This is the design of Satan they are his ordinary subtleties that deceive the most fervent by this meanes destroying